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Clyde-Savannah basketball legend froms the 1980's Terry Brown had his uniform number retired during a ceremony before the game against Gananda Friday.
(Photo: Jamie Germano)

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CLYDE – When Terry Brown was an outstanding high school basketball player at Clyde-Savannah, his reputation stretched all the way to Rochester and maybe throughout Section V.

If you failed to check box scores of the games Brown was in during the mid-1980s, there was still a strong clue about his ability to shoot. Brown's nickname was "Downtown'' and there were no 3-point lines on high school courts.

When Brown graduated from Clyde-Savannah in 1986, his point total was 2,360. Twenty-eight years later, with forwards and even centers eager to shoot "3s'' these days, Brown is the second-leading scorer in Section V boys basketball history.

That was just the beginning in basketball for Brown, a path the community in Clyde highlighted again during a ceremony Friday night in which the jersey No. 41 he wore in high school was retired. The mayor of Clyde with other town officials, the Clyde-Savannah school district superintendent and former Golden Eagles boys basketball coach Anthony Patanzo also recognized Brown as a distinguished graduate of the high school.

"This is cool, like I used to say when I was young,'' Brown, 45, said. "On the serious side, it feels good to be back home to see my family and my friends.

"It all started here, my dreams to play big-time college basketball.''

Brown sat and watched this year's team, which includes two of his cousins — Joe Faniel and Michael Turner — handle Gananda, 63-49. The Golden Eagles (14-0, 12-0) are ranked No. 1 in Class C.

Turner finished with a career-high 16 rebounds and Cam DiSanto had 25 points and 13 rebounds for Clyde-Savannah.

Brown made a highly productive stop at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, where he led the team to a national junior college championship, before he played for a Division I program known as the Kansas Jayhawks. With Roy Williams in the coach's seat, the Jayhawks lost to Duke in the 1991 NCAA Tournament final, despite a team-high 16 points by Brown.

"His time at Kansas, everyone in the region cheered for him, not just Clyde,'' Clyde-Savannah Sports Hall of Fame co-founder Steve Groat said.

Brown caught the attention of current Clyde-Savannah boys basketball coach Tim Jackson, a 1980 graduate of the high school, on cold winter days similar to Friday night. Jackson could almost count on the sight of Brown putting up jump shot after jump shot.

How many jumpers can a shooter let fly in an hour, two or six, like Brown did?

"I didn't even want to walk in that weather,'' Jackson said. "I've never been around anything like it. These are life lessons, what Terry did to go from little Clyde to the biggest stage in college basketball.

"I was moved up from the JV, I came off the bench and went from there,'' Brown said. "Gyms were pretty much packed every game. All of the rival games. Lyons it was jam-packed. Penn Yan it was jam-packed. Sodus it was jam-packed.